By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

BIRMINGHAM – A 27-year-old Maylene man who was arrested by the Alabaster Police Department in early December 2018 and charged with raping an underage girl had previously been deported from the United States, and was here illegally when he was arrested on the most recent charges, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court.

The Alabaster Police Department arrested Amancio Betancourt Martinez, who lists an address on Hidden Brook Trail in Maylene, on Dec. 3, 2018, and charged him with first-degree rape, which is a Class A felony.

According to his arrest warrant, Martinez allegedly “engaged in sexual intercourse with the victim “by forcible compulsion” on Nov. 26.

When he was arrested on the rape charge, Martinez was on probation on a cocaine trafficking charge he pleaded guilty to in 2014. When he pleaded guilty to the drug charge, he was originally sentenced to 10 years in prison, but his sentence was split to three years in prison followed by two years of supervised probation. He received 542 days of jail credit reduced from his prison sentence.

Following his conviction on the cocaine trafficking charge, Martinez, a Mexican citizen and native, was deported to Mexico on Dec. 31, 2015, according to federal court documents.

On Nov. 26, 2018, the Alabaster Police Department contacted the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Birmingham office regarding Martinez after he was identified as a suspect in the rape investigation. The same day, Alabaster detectives, an ICE deportation officer and Shelby County Sheriff’s Office deputies took Martinez into custody at a jobsite in Shelby County where he was working.

After Martinez arrived at the Birmingham ICE office, fingerprint checks confirmed his identity as having been deported in 2015.

Martinez is now scheduled to appear in Shelby County District Court for a preliminary hearing on Jan. 10.